Smoke and shattered mirrors

Chapter seventeen: Merci is such a doll

The tree house was incredibly quiet as I look around to find clues leading to my troubling past. It was quarter to three now. The witching hour.

As I look around, I see various items. The only things I found interesting were in a small pile next to me. I shiver as a gust of cold wind hit my skin through the thin night gown I wore over my PJs,  so I get up and close the window again.

Fine, the weather is hot as hell in the afternoon while it's freezing cold at night. This place can't be a haven for rich people.

If the chances were up to me, I'd pick a place where the weather won't kill me.

I opened a sorta rusted silver tin can- not the same silver as Rory's flask- but silver nonetheless, and when it snapped open, it held a few tools to make bracelets. As I look more closely at the materials, I realized why it was familiar: It was the same materials used for the bracelets I found stuck in my diary and then again on my flashback. It was all made by me!

I just thought all the while that I bought it custom made. But no, those bracelets were made from my own hands.

Then I move on to another item: The pocketbooks I stumbled over. There were four in all. I flipped the pages of Dolly Departed and The lovely bones  yet there weren't anything stuck on the pages, but I  did notice the three missing pages from Dolly Departed. 

Weird. Why is it torn? And didn't Topher say I don't read much? 

The other two pocketbooks were A walk to remember and Goodbye, Dolly. Goodbye, Dolly and Dolly Departed were both written by the same author. And neither of the mystery paperbacks held any answers.

I put A walk to remember down but I felt something on the very last page. When I turned it over, it had two drops of dry blood. 

I threw it aside and shuddered lightly.

The  tree house  was covered in beige paint and celebrity posters. There were various stickers that I would take the time to look at closely later on. But the one sticker that grabbed my attention was the Support Group sticker with my name on it beside the large body mirror.

Worchester Support Group Program: HI! I'm Mercicus Love 

Why did I have to attend Support Group? Support Group of what? 

Which brought back th conversation I had with Topher today on the phone.

Me: "You still have the footages, right?"

Topher: "Yup." (A pause) "I'll pick you up tomorrow after my soccer practice. We can sleuth then."

Me: "Oh. You do soccer?"

Topher: (Laughs) "Yeah. Snowflakes after?"

Me: "Nah. People there stare at me. I don't want to... I mean, they look like they've seen a ghost."

Topher: "Okay. Well... I'll take you out of town." (A voice, unmistakably feminine, spoke: Topher, get back here.) He replied, though I couldn't hear it well. 

Me: "Who's that with you?"

Topher: "No one. (A pause) I, um, gotta go. I have...uh, errads and stuff."

Me: "I'll see you tomorrow then."

 But I really want to know is this: Who was Topher with? Was he really dating someonelse?

Pitiful but true. I have amnesia and all I want to know is Topher's life. What we did together. What we used to talk about. 

He is so genuine in a way that made me feel intrigued. Is there something more to our friendship than meets the eye? Or is it the secret he keeps from me?

Either way, I'll get to the bottom of things. And the faster I dig, the better.

The small lump on my head from fainting was aching again. I sigh, I should have brought an ice pack 

There were cobwebs hanging on the ceiling and settled dust almost everywhere. 

Stupidly, I got up and tried each floorboard to check if it creaks. It didn't I didn't put anything here and it seems to have no point in searching any further.

The big porcelain doll I encountered earlier was the last item I inspected. It was probably Sophie's; seeing to it that I don't play with dolls. Wait... I recognize this doll. It was the same doll that Sophie was holding in the picture I have in my room! The one that she got for Christmas! Only, now, it's dirty and it wore a ragged red dress.

Red dress? Ragged appearance?

I quickly grabbed my flashlight and left the tree house exactly the same way it was: Dark and quiet. I had trouble bringing the doll back into the house with one hand and a pink, bulky flashlight on the other, what with the doll being big and heavy.

Thankfully, Gloria was still up and was still cleaning Rory's mess. Apparently, Rory vomited upstairs in his bedroom and she just finished cleaning him up.

"Gloria, was this in my tree house before?" I asked.

She put down the small basin and towelette on the kitchen sink and looked at the life-sized doll closely. "No, I've never seen that up there. Why?"

"Why is it in my tree house? Who had access in my tree house?"

"Only me, miss Merci. Maybe you forgot you hid it somewhere there."

"So nothing was occupying the leftmost side?" A shiver raced against my spine. 

"Nothing. Why?"

I shook my head. This doll was recently put there. 

I know that because it was the same red dress I wore in my nightmares. Before getting hit by a car.

Rory tried to get in once. Maybe he did. 

This makes me suspect Rory more. But was he really capable of killing his own family?

And what did I do to him to deserve this kind of torture?

As I gaze into the doll's glassy, unseeing eyes; It made me wonder: Maybe Rory did it to silence me. 

Forever.